They’d used protection.
He always used protection.
Except that first time, when all his usual rules had splintered and shattered one by one. Not least any thought to the notion of protection.
Which meant that he had no one else to blame for the fact that a baby wasn’t wholly out of the question.
So how the hell was any kid to cope with him as a father?
Malachi’s mind hurtled along like a car with no brakes. He was usually controlled, intuitive—effective when it came to dealing with business problems put in front of him—but right now he felt as if the ground beneath his feet was opening up. Instead of focusing on the issue all he could picture was her lush naked body, spread out before him like some kind of personal offering. He could still practically feel the heat from her mouth, as wild as it was sweet.
He couldn’t say she’d been experienced, or skilled, and yet he’d never replayed sex with any other woman the way he’d replayed those nights with Saskia.
Why?
Maybe because he’d been lusting after her from the moment she’d walked into Care to Play as a medical liaison volunteer a few months earlier. Somehow during the so-called interview she’d ended up telling him about her failed engagement and her cheating fiancé, and she’d been so refreshingly open with him that he’d found himself captivated, wondering what kind of an idiot man would let a woman like Saskia slip through his fingers.
He’d had no intention of acting on the attraction, of course. Even as it had sizzled between them for months he’d been determined not to go there. Firstly, she was bound to be rebounding, and secondly she was a volunteer at the centre that he’d set up, and he’d told himself that was tantamount to making him her boss.
He’d even said those very words to her that evening at the nightclub, several months later, when Saskia, Sol, and a group of their Moorlands General colleagues had been letting loose for once, and she’d laughed in his face. Confident, sassy and oh-so-sexy, she’d told him in no uncertain terms that he was nothing like her boss. She’d also told him that maybe a rebound fling was exactly what she needed, given that she’d never had a one-night stand in her life before.
And he’d believed her. More than that, he had wanted to believe her. Because she’d spoken to something utterly primal deep within him...and what was the harm of a one-night stand?
Only he hadn’t been able to let her go that night. Or the next night. Or the next.
It had been the most indulgent, incredible long weekend Malachi could ever have imagined, and when she’d finally left he hadn’t been prepared for how quiet—how empty—his luxury bachelor pad would suddenly feel. As ridiculous as that was.
He’d fantasised about her returning with a sharpness that punctured him. Whether because he knew he was nothing more to Saskia than a rebound fling, or because he knew that he didn’t have the time or inclination for a relationship, he couldn’t be sure. Either way, what choice had he had other than to put a little distance between them and avoid Care to Play every single time he’d known she was due there, in the hope of letting that sharpness dull?
Only it hadn’t dulled. It hadn’t faded at all.
If anything, this latest encounter had only proved that he wanted Saskia more than ever—pregnant or not.
His baby.
It was enough to bring his head round a full three-sixty.
Surely he was the last person in the world who should ever have a kid? He wouldn’t love it. That quality wasn’t in him—not any more. It was gone. Spent. Used up all those years ago when he should have been the one being loved and cared for—not the other way around.
A baby?
He could provide for it, but he couldn’t be the all-attentive father figure it would need.
Worse—and he was ashamed of this more than anything—he would end up resenting it, and the time and attention it demanded, the way he’d resented his own mother. The way he’d once resented even Sol.
He still hated himself for those feelings. Even now.
The responsibility he’d had for his younger brother since they’d been little kids had made him so angry back then. And even now, over two and a half decades later, he still felt it. Especially as Sol looked a million miles away now, a plastic cup of vending machine coffee in his hands.
‘What’s the story, bratik?’
Sol frowned before parroting out information in a way that only confirmed that he was sidestepping the real answer.
‘The scan revealed no evidence of any bleed on the brain, and Izzy didn’t damage her neck or break her jaw in the fall, which we suspected—hence why she’s been transferred to Paediatric Intensive Care. Maxillofacial are on their way, to deal with the teeth in Izzy’s mouth that are still loose. We have the two that came out in a plastic lunchbox someone gave to Izzy, but I think they’re baby teeth, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We won’t know for sure until some of the swelling goes down.’
‘I know all that. I was there when the paediatric doctor told Michelle.’
The paediatric doctor.
As though simply saying Saskia’s name would allow his brother to read the truth all over his face.
As though he didn’t know how every inch of how her body felt and tasted.
As though she wasn’t carrying his baby.
Possibly.
Probably?
Shaking it off, he tried for levity.
‘I was asking what the story was with you, numbnuts.’
Not exactly his most convincing attempt at humour, but it was all he had in him. Fortunately Sol seemed too caught up in his own issues to pick up on it.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he mumbled, a sure-fire giveaway that he was lying.
Malachi snorted. ‘You know exactly what I mean. You forget I’ve practically raised you since we were kids. You can’t fool me.’
Sol opened his mouth and Malachi waited for the usual witty comeback. But for once it didn’t come. Instead his younger brother glowered into his coffee. Strangely, he was avoiding Malachi’s stare. And when Sol spoke his voice was unusually quiet, his words coming out of the blue.
‘I haven’t forgotten anything. I remember everything you went through to raise us, Mal. I know you sold your soul to the devil just to get enough money to buy food for our bellies.’
The words—the previously unspoken gratitude—slid unexpectedly into Malachi’s chest. Like a dagger heading straight to the heart and mercifully stopping just a hair’s breadth short.
How was it that the very moment he was ready to doubt himself his brother seemed
